Shahhat

Greek settlers from the island of Thera founded Cyrene around 631 BC on a terrace of the Green Mountain, a few kilometres inland and high above the sea, beside a spring they dedicated to Apollo. The city grew rich on grain, horses and silphium, a plant used as medicine and seasoning and harvested to extinction in antiquity; its emblem appeared on Cyrenaican coins. With its port Apollonia and the cities of Euesperides, Taucheira and Ptolemais, Cyrene formed the Pentapolis, and it produced the philosopher Aristippus and the mathematician Eratosthenes.

The city passed to the Ptolemies of Egypt and then to Rome in 96 BC; a Roman governor was first sent in 74 BC, and Cyrenaica was later joined with Crete as a single province. A Jewish revolt in 115–117 devastated it, and although the emperors Hadrian and later Justinian rebuilt parts of the city, an earthquake in 262 and another in 365 left it badly damaged. Christian basilicas rose among the older sanctuaries, and after the Arab conquest of the 7th century the site was gradually abandoned.

Modern Shahhat grew beside the ruins. Italian forces established a base on the site in 1913 and excavation has continued there since, and after Libyan independence the settlement expanded as a district centre on the plateau beside the fenced archaeological zone. Cyrene was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1982 and added to the List of World Heritage in Danger in 2017, because of the conflict and the pressure of building on the archaeological zone.

Shahhat belongs to the Jebel Akhdar, a part of Cyrenaica with a strong regional identity built on Bedouin tribal belonging, the memory of the Senussi order and the resistance to Italian rule. Tribal ties still shape marriage, local politics and security more than they do on the western coast, and the eastern Arabic dialect spoken here is closer to that of western Egypt than to Tripoli's.

Hospitality follows desert and mountain custom. Tea is poured in rounds, strong and sweet, the last glass often served with peanuts or almonds, and a guest is expected to eat before talking business. Weddings run over several days and draw whole extended families back to the town, and Ramadan evenings are spent moving between relatives' houses. Poetry recited at gatherings remains a respected art in the east.

The ancient city is part of local identity in a complicated way: it is a source of pride, a place children are taken on school visits, and also a constraint, since the protected zone limits where the town can build. Antiquities staff, guards and archaeologists have long formed a small professional community here, and Libyan and foreign missions worked on the site for decades before 2011. Omar Mukhtar, the guerrilla leader hanged in 1931, is honoured across Cyrenaica, and his name is attached to institutions throughout the Green Mountain.

Shahhat is a small town and the administrative centre of its district, with schools, a hospital, government offices and a branch of the region's university system. Most households live from public salaries, farming and small trade, and many have relatives in Al Bayda, the much larger city 24 km west, which supplies the higher-level services.

The plateau around the town is the most productive farmland in Libya: barley and wheat, potatoes and vegetables, olives, figs, almonds and grapes, along with sheep and goats grazed on the scrub. Rain-fed agriculture is possible here in a way it is not almost anywhere else in the country, and the harvest calendar sets the rhythm of the year. Building materials, fuel and cash all pass along the coastal highway from Benghazi.

Daily life has the difficulties common across Libya since 2011: power cuts, fuel and cash shortages, delays in public salaries, and a heavy security presence with checkpoints on the roads. The flood that struck Derna, about 70 km east, in September 2023 killed thousands and was felt across the Green Mountain, where towns took in displaced families. Protecting the archaeological site from illegal building and looting is a live local issue.

Eastern Libyan cooking is Bedouin at heart, built on lamb, barley, bread and dairy, and Shahhat eats what the Jebel Akhdar produces. Bazin, a firm dough of barley flour turned out in a dome and eaten with a lamb or vegetable stew from a shared dish, is the dish most associated with Libya. Couscous, steamed and served with lamb or chicken and vegetables, belongs to festive and communal meals, and rishda, a dish of noodles with onions and chickpeas, appears in home kitchens.

Ramadan has its own table: sharba, a lamb and vegetable soup thickened with orzo-like pasta and coloured with tomato and mint, is served almost every evening, alongside bourek, thin pastry parcels filled with meat, potato or cheese. Asida, a lump of steamed wheat dough eaten with date syrup and melted butter, is made for the Prophet's birthday and for Eid.

The Italian period left pasta in the Libyan kitchen, and imbakbaka — pasta cooked in a spiced tomato and lamb sauce — is common in the east. Local honey from the mountain, figs, almonds and olives are sold from roadside stalls, and dates come up from the southern oases. Fish from the coast at Susa reaches the town's markets. Alcohol is illegal; tea and strong coffee, taken slowly in cafés and at home, are the drinks of the day.